The American Political Class - "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" Today - The Ugly, Part 1

This week we have been using the old Clint Eastwood movie, “The Good, The Bad And The Ugly” to describe politics in America today. We started off with “The Good,” a post meant to get us in a better mood before we looked at the Bad and the Ugly. The Good post focused on the good things that individual Americans are doing for the country, other people, and the environment since the American political class and the government it operates are certainly not doing those things. That post of Good can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-american-political-class-good-bad_15.html

Unfortunately, we had to follow up that Good feeling post with two posts that covered The Bad about the politicians in this country. The wasteful spending of taxpayer money with no societal benefit in return, the inefficient and ineffective government programs that often make a problem worse, etc. The first Bad post can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-american-political-class-good-bad_15.html

Today and tomorrow we are going to look at “The Ugly” side of American politicians. This does not mean that what they have done to the country is not ugly:

• Record high unemployment numbers for a record length of time.
• Economic programs that are expensive and useless.
• Government programs that are fraught with fraud and which lose well over $100 billion a year.
• A health care reform piece of legislation that is increasing the cost and decreasing the health insurance coverage of Americans, the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do.
• Downgrading of the country’s credit rating for the first time in our history.
• A Veterans Administration whose incompetence and uncaring attitude has resulted in likely thousands of unnecessary veterans' deaths over the years.
• A tax burden that forces Americans to work over half of the year just to pay for taxes at all levels of government.
• A regulatory burden that stifles the economy and job creation.
• A national debt approaching an unfathomable $18 TRILLION, well above $50,000 for every person in the country including our kids.
• A foreign policy that is in tatters and useless besides endangering the national security of the country.

We could go on and on but you get the idea. Our politicians are bad at problem definition and resolution, they have no idea how to run an efficient and crime free government, and they are killing freedom and liberty in this country. But today will go beyond these dismal results.

Today we look at their attitude and how their selfishness and personal greed are likely major contributing factors to the dismal results they seem to always end up producing. It is their attitude, as much as their non-success in resolving major issues, that cause the majority of us to loathe them so much. 

Remember, recent and credible public opinion surveys put our approval rating of Congress at levels far less than 10%. Obama’s approval rating has been in free fall for a while now with far more Americans disapproving of his performance than those that approve his performance. We despise them and today and tomorrow let’s look at several reasons while that spite goes beyond their inability to effectively govern.

1) Up until last year, it was illegal for any American to profit off of any kind of company insider stock trading information….except for members of Congress and their staffs. They could leverage information about upcoming legislation, insider knowledge of companies’ situations, pending regulations, possible industry bailouts, etc. for their own personal enrichment, something that mere mortals outside of Washington would likely go to jail for.

That sleazy part of their lives was exposed by a “60 Minutes” investigative report that documented how politicians were able to leverage their positions of power and insider knowledge for their own self enrichment. The piece pointed out how Nancy Pelosi, while the Speaker of the House, was able to quickly and easily pocket a couple of hundred thousand dollars when pending legislation to regulate credit card companies was postponed until after a VISA IPO was launched, an IPO that she was granted insider access to. Apparently, this was just one of upwards of nine or so deals that she leveraged without danger of jail time.

As a result of the reporting and uproar over the special treatment politicians had granted only to themselves, a piece of legislation called the STOCK Act was quickly drafted and enacted to curtail, if not eliminate, this type of behavior, putting Congress and Washington elites back into the same treatment mode as the rest of us. The details of the whole sordid situation can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2011/11/final-proof-of-undeniable-corruption.html

Everyone went away happy that justice and equality had prevailed and the topic faded away. Unfortunately, it faded away so much that in the excitement of other issues and other crises, the Washington political class secretly approved new legislation that essentially gutted the original STOCK Act and allowed the Washington political class to get back to what they seem to do best, trade on insider information for their own financial gain.

They were very sneaky and underhanded how they did it. I guess they figured that if they came right our front and just nullified the original STOCK Act, someone would have found out about it and the whole scandal would have started again. The underhanded way they went about gutting the law included the following details:

• The original STOCK Act required the online, easily accessed posting of the personal financial disclosure statements that lawmakers and Congressional candidates, the President and Vice President, members of the cabinet and high-ranking Congressional and executive branch staff file each year. 
• This information was supposed to be made available in machine readable, electronic format. 
• With no hearings held or no public notices to the public or to most members of the Senate, the Senate voted by unanimous consent to remove both the online disclosure requirement for staff members on the Hill and in executive branch agencies and killed the creation of a public database containing the information within the reports. The new law’s provision barring insider trading by members of Congress was technically left intact.
• Roll Call reported that “neither the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee nor its House counterpart seemed to have specifics on what was in the works,” which is not surprising since everything was done in utmost secrecy lest the shenanigans become public and on the public record.
• The changes that gutted the original legislation were handled solely at the Congressional leadership level. 
• Under the new STOCK Act version, the reports and personal information of lawmakers will still be posted online as they are now. But the information within the reports would continue to be locked up in files that are not easily analyzed, discouraging investigation of insider trading done by politicians, the exact opposite of what the original STOCK Act was supposed to do.
• President Obama was a co-conspirator in this shady effort, signing the gutted STOCK Act revision into law, ironically, on tax day April 15. 

Thus, the more things change, the more they say the same. This is basically lying to the American public by proclaiming they were cleaning up their act in public while secretly undoing what the claimed they had done. Pathetic liars, and selfish [you fill in the blank].

2) President Obama is constantly dividing the country along wealth lines, continually harping on “income inequality” to set up a mythical battle between the wealthy and not wealthy in this country. In this mythical battle, he constantly tries to position himself as helping out the “little guy,” the middle class and lower class in this country, against the big, bad rich people that steal everything for themselves.

I personally find this type of attitude as nasty, divisive, wasteful, lacking in dignity, and not worthy of a President. But if he chooses to act as so, this is his choice. However, what really is loathsome is his actions as they usually pertain to his personal vacations, as the details for the next of his numerous vacations were recently released to the public:

• The Obamas will depart Washington on Saturday, August 9th and head for Martha’s Vineyard where they will vacation for two full weeks.
• They are staying in a $12 million vacation.
• For their family of four, the Obamas will be living in a seven-bedroom, nine-bath, 8,100-square-foot house.
• The house sits on a 10-acre lot and is assessed at more than $12 million. 
• The house has 17 rooms in total, expansive water views of Vineyard Sound, an infinity pool and hot tub, and a dual tennis-basketball court.

I am sorry, I do not think you can claim you understand the plight of the non-wealthy in this country when your family of four is spending two weeks in a house and a setting like this. Hypocritical to the max. 

And this extravagance comes on top of the fact that according to recent financial disclosures, travel costs alone for the Obama family vacations over the past five and a half years has cost the American taxpayer about $44 million, money that could have been much better spent on real Americans in need rather than vacations for the First Family around the country and around the world. Oh, and this total does not include the total cost for the family to vacation in Africa last year, a total cost that has been estimated at about $100 million.

Keep in mind that he is taking this two week, opulent vacation in the midst of a major security and humanitarian crises on our southern border, a hot war involving killing and shooting between the Ukrainians and Russians, a hot war between the Israelis and Palestinians, an imploding Iraq, military veterans that are dying as a result of a dysfunctional Veterans Administration, an economy that is faltering, high unemployment, and a myriad of other crucial and dangerous situations.

I realize that the President is under a lot of stress, like anyone else he deserves a vacation and time with his family. But from a symbolism perspective, maybe idling it back a little would be appropriate. Show some leadership in the midst of a world that is blowing up and a little empathy with the rest of America, many of which are struggling. 

In the face of no leadership and no empathy, then shut up about income inequality. You have no right to discuss income inequality while staying in an 8,000 square foot mansion in Martha’s vineyard.

That concludes the first part have of our “Ugly” discussion of the American political class. A group of people more concerned with their own self enrichment, whether it is cutting back room deals to allow their insider trading to start up again or staying in opulent mansions, mostly at taxpayer expense on vacation.

More loathsome behavior tomorrow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w